Inviting Members to a Site

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Microsoft's SharePoint™ team Web sites and Microsoft® FrontPagebased Web sites include an invitation feature you can use to send e-mail invitations to members of your site. You use the Send an Invitation Wizard to invite as many users as you like, and to create local user accounts for them on your site. You can even invite a group to your site by using an e-mail group address.

In the Send an Invitation Wizard you can type a message to include in the invitation e-mail message. For example, you can describe your site and what it should be used for, or add a personal message to the default e-mail invitation.

The Send an Invitation Wizard automatically sends e-mail messages to each user, notifying them that they have been invited to your site. Each e-mail message includes a link to the site URL and the password to use to gain access to the site. When users gain access to the site for the first time, they then change the default password to a new password.

Note When you invite a user to your site who already has a domain account, the e-mail message sent to that user does not include the user's password.

You invite single users or a group of users by using their local machine or domain accounts. You must set new users to be automatically assigned to a specific role when they gain access to the site by selecting a role in the Roles box. You must be a site administrator to invite users to a site.

To invite members to your site (SharePoint team Web site only)

On the navigation bar of your SharePoint team Web site, click Site Settings.

On the Site Settings page, under Web Administration, click Send an invitation.

On the Enter e-mail addresses page, type the e-mail addresses of the people you want to invite to your Web site.

Include each user's full e-mail address (or a group e-mail address), and separate each e-mail address with a return. For example,

someone@domain.com

someoneelse@domain.com

Click Next.

On the Verify accounts page, look through the list of users and verify the account information.

Users who do not yet have accounts on the local machine are marked "New." When you finish the wizard, these accounts are created on the local machine. If you want to change anything about the accounts (such as the display name), make the changes on this page.

Click Next.

On the Personal greeting and role assignment page, if you want to add a personal message to the standard e-mail message, type a short message to include in the invitation e-mail in the text box.

In the Role box, select the role to assign users to by default.

All of the users you invite are assigned to the same role. You can use the Manage Users administration page (in the Site Administration pages) to assign users to unique roles later. For more information, see Managing Users.

Click Finish.

If you are administering a FrontPage-based Web site, you can open the Send an Invitation Wizard from the Site Administration pages.

To invite members to your site (FrontPage-based Web site)

On your server computer, click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Microsoft SharePoint Administrator.

In the list of virtual servers, click the name of the virtual server that hosts the Web site you want to send invitations to.

On the Site Administration page, under Users and Roles, click Send an invitation.

On the Enter e-mail addresses page, type the e-mail addresses of the people you want to invite to your Web site.

Include each user's full e-mail address (or a group e-mail address), and separate each e-mail address with a return. For example,

someone@domain.com

someoneelse@domain.com

Click Next.

On the Verify accounts page, look through the list of users and verify the account information.

Users who do not yet have accounts on the local machine are marked "New." When you finish the wizard, these accounts are created on the local machine. If you want to change anything about the accounts (such as the display name), make the changes on this page.

Click Next.

On the Personal greeting and role assignment page, if you want to add a personal message to the standard e-mail message, type a short message to include in the invitation e-mail in the text box.

In the Role box, select the role to assign users to by default.

All of the users you invite are assigned to the same role. You can use the Manage Users administration page (in the Site Administration pages) to assign users to unique roles later. For more information, see Managing Users.

Inviting groups

If you are on the Microsoft Windows® platform, you can use the Send an Invitation Wizard to invite groups to your site by using the group's local machine or domain account. The Send an Invitation Wizard does not distinguish between individual and group e-mail names. Whether you type an individual e-mail name, a group name, or a distribution list e-mail name, you get the same result. If the name does not yet have an account on the local machine, an account is created when the wizard is finished, and the account (whether created for an individual or group) is assigned a temporary password to use when first accessing the site.

This process of creating accounts automatically works fine for individual accounts. The individual logs on with his or her account name and temporary password, changes the password to something more secure, then continues working. Automatic account creation also works well for a pre-existing domain group. The individuals that belong to that group already have domain accounts and are able to change the passwords for their own accounts.

However, if you invite a new local group or an e-mail distribution list to your site, a single local account is created for the entire group, with one user name and one password. So, if one member of the group signs on to the site and changes the password, the other members of the group can no longer log on.

To avoid this scenario, you must either create the group ahead of time, and then invite the group, or invite each member of the group individually. Either way, you end up with individual accounts for each user, rather than a shared account that can be accidentally disabled.

Setting command-line properties to control user groups

You can also set the following properties on the command line to help manage groups for invitations.

Property

Description

LocalNTAccountsOnly

Specifies that domain accounts are to be used when sending invitations or adding a user. If you are using local accounts only, set the property value to 1 to bypass the check for a domain account and automatically create local machine accounts when issuing an invitation. Note that setting this value to 1 means that you cannot use any domain accounts, even if a particular domain account is valid.

RestrictAccountVisibility

Specifies that the list of users shows only users that were either created on this virtual server or role members in the current Web site. Set to 1 to restrict the list of users, 0 to show all users.